Good evening. Welcome to the Walnut Creek Transportation Committee meeting September
17th, 2026. If the Secretary please take a roll call. Student Commissioner Zellin.
Commissioner Ash. Present. Commissioner Guerrero. Present. Commissioner McMahon.
present commissioner patch is absent chair crawling present all right thank you so we will
now move on to public communications this portion of public communications is for anyone who wishes
to address the commission within our transportation area on topics that are not on tonight's agenda so
if you wish to speak on any of the two topics that are on tonight's agenda there will be a public
comment period for those agenda items. So do we have anybody from the public who wishes to speak
on general transportation comments to the commission? Are we taking Zoom now? No. Okay.
We have no members of the public waiting to provide comments. All right. Thank you. We'll
close this portion of public comment. All right. Next item is our consent calendar. The only thing
on our consent calendar are the meeting minutes
of the May 21st meeting.
We did not have a July meeting.
So I'm just going to ask if anybody
on the commission has any edits or corrections
to those minutes.
Commissioner Ash?
I move to accept the minutes.
I need to poll the other commissioners first.
Sorry. Commissioner McMahon and Commissioner Guerrero.
No edits.
Okay, and the chair has none.
Would you like to make your motion again, Commissioner Ashe?
Now I'm busy now.
Get your own show.
So moved.
All right, we have a motion.
Do we have a second?
Second.
All right, motion made and seconded.
Will the secretary, did we take a roll call vote for the minutes?
Or no?
It's a consent item.
We can just accept it as is.
I think we usually do, so for that reason we will.
Okay, and Commissioner Zelling wasn't here though, so-
That's why I didn't poll Commissioner Zelling.
Commissioner Ash?
Aye.
Commissioner Guerrero?
Aye.
Commissioner McMahon?
Aye.
Patch, absent.
Chair Crowley?
Aye.
Thanks.
All right, thank you.
All right, moving on to consideration items
for the commission.
Item A, the Newell Avenue Bicycle
and pedestrian infrastructure projects.
Do we have any presentations from staff?
The floor is yours.
Introduce yourself, please.
Thank you.
Good evening, commissioners.
Thank you for giving the opportunity
to talk to you tonight about the Newell Avenue
Bicycle and Pedestrian Infrastructure Project.
I'm gonna preface this project.
It's gonna be presented by me, Austin Potto,
as well as Brianna Byrne.
This project is actually phased out into two phases.
So I'll be talking about phase one,
which is currently in design.
And then Brianna will be the ringer talking about phase two,
which is in the more conceptuals.
So I ask also that any questions on phase one
being held to the end on phase two
just because they are connected.
So with that, we'll begin.
So on the agenda today,
we'll first be talking about the background
of the Newell Avenue project
and the Newell Avenue corridor.
So that includes the proposed plan
are the plans that have basically proceeded the design
and the conceptual of this project
go over the funding source,
so which we'll talk about later,
as well as what the improvements for the phase one,
which is the near-term plan
and the improvements for phase two,
which is the long-term plan,
phase one is currently funded, phase two is not.
And then so under phase one,
we'll go over the project timeline,
the just the design elements
that we currently have right now.
And then for phase two,
we'll talk about the proposed corridor improvements from,
and then for phase one,
it's from Newell from Broadway to Capitol Street.
And then phase two is Capwell to City Limits.
So to go over the background,
we have a whole list of different plants here.
I'm only gonna talk about the Iron Horse
Corridor Transportation Plan.
Brianna will go over the others as she,
they're more relevant for phase two.
But back in 2020,
the Iron Horse Trail Corridor Improvement Plan
outlined different types of proposed recommended
improvements for the intersection of Newell and Broadway,
which is an entrance for the Iron Horse Trail.
So using that as basically the beginning of this project
as we looked at the plan and the proposed improvements
that were recommended on that plan.
And then again, Brianna will talk about the others
as they become more apparent.
So now I wanna talk about the intersection needs
at this intersection in New Orleans Broadway.
So one, this is a Safe Routes to School project.
So this project aims to make walking and biking
more accessible and safe for children walking to school.
And in this case, it's Los Lomas High School,
which is just south of the intersection.
Where at this intersection currently,
a lot of students as well as adults
commuting to work use the Iron Horse Trail
to go north-south on Broadway.
The one issue that arises is the Iron Horse Trail.
The two heads are, one is on the northeast
and the other is on the southwest.
So to cross Iron Horse Trail,
you have to go through two separate pedestrian crossings,
which is about 100 feet each,
so you're crossing about 200 feet of travel lanes,
about 14 to 15 different, 14 to 15 lanes as you're going.
And then also you're, you know, you're crossing east-west,
you're waiting there, you're crossing north-south.
So this project basically aims to rectify that,
create an area where the, not only the students,
but all the commuters and everyone else using the trail
can cross this intersection more safely, more accessible.
So now I'm gonna talk about the one bay area grant,
OBAT grant cycle three.
This is where we received the funding.
So back in 2023, we received about $7 million
in federal funding to construct Safe Routes School
improvements on four locations.
So the one is the Newell Avenue Broadway intersection,
which I will be talking about tonight.
The other three are Walnut Boulevard,
Buena Vista Avenue, and Cedar Lane in Bono Drive.
Those are much smaller projects that were separated
from this project due to the nature
and the scale of Broadway and Newell.
And then out of that seven million,
about four and a half of that federal funds
is dedicated to Newell and Broadway
with an additional 600,000
in local match traffic impact fee funds.
So now we're going to start getting into the nitty gritty of the Newell Avenue and Broadway
plan.
So again, this is phase one and this is funded through the Caltrans and the official title
of the plans is the Newell Avenue and Broadway Safe Routes to School Project.
And this rendering right here, we'll go over the plans as we go through, but this is just
kind of a general look of what it would somewhat look like once all the construction is done.
So we got a big wall of text here but I do think the timeline is important to kind of
see again where we started and where we are and then what's left. So again like I mentioned before
there's the studies done previously which gave the recommendations for this intersection
And again in 2023, we received that seven million dollars in federal funding and the two years preceding that the city has done
traffic studies has done
Public outreach has done the conceptual plans to basically narrow in what our scope is what the
estimated cost is
And what exactly get feedback from stakeholders members of the public transportation commission?
and all that and then so
With all that information with all that work done we started the federal process with Caltrans.
So whenever you are awarded federal money you have to go through Caltrans and go through a long
lengthy process to get the money. So in 2025, August 2025, is when we received the allocation
for federal funding to be used for design. So we're not able to actually design the project
until Caltrans gives us the design money. So that was in August of 2025 and then following that year
pretty much right after that is when we started the process to look for and hire a consultant
to do the design work and so that we hired them in April of 2026 and then in that same year just
about a month ago we received the environmental clearance from Caltrans and then actually this
month as we received the 65% plans which we'll go over today or tonight. The last three dates
here are anticipated dates. I want to highlight them in particular because these were our
basically our goal dates when we set this project and when it was starting. So as you can see
anticipated in November 2026 is receiving right-of-way clearance from Caltrans and then January
2027 having the 100% final plans as well as funding allocation from Caltrans
for construction. Just like with the design we cannot bid the project until
we receive funding from Caltrans for construction and the reason I want to
bring this up is because the Caltrans process working with Caltrans is a very
lengthy process for instance the environmental clearance that we received
in August we submitted in February.
So it took six months to get the environmental clearance.
So and we'll see in the next slide why I wanted to bring that up.
So now we're going to start talking about the plans itself.
Things are going to get a little, you know, a little complicated I should say.
So I'll use the little pointer to kind of help show everybody what I'm talking about.
again and kind of go start off with the affected users and who would be
benefited from the accessibility and safety that this project will provide. So
we have a list there of Los Lomas High School like I talked about. Users of the
Iron Horse Trail. We got Broadway Plaza in the northwest corner. We have Kaiser
who their offices is more west but they have the parking lot on the southeast
corner. Whole Foods is right there on the southwest. And then County Connection,
and they obviously have, I think, three bus stops
in the area.
Like I mentioned before, currently in 65% review,
and we're currently dealing, working with Caltrans
for the federal funding.
And then the last line here, construction summer, 2028.
The reason we set it to 2028 is because in a perfect world,
if we receive, if we get the plans done by January, 2027
and get all the Caltrans aligned,
then we would be able to basically get all that stuff
by 2027, January, bid February, and then construct by June.
However, just by seeing how long it's been working,
taking to work with Caltrans so far,
and in previous projects,
construction summer 2028 is a more reasonable timeline,
especially because this is a safe process school project
we don't wanna construct when school is in session.
So that's why we're looking at 2028.
In a perfect world, it's possible for 2027.
So now we're gonna start the actual design improvements.
So the main gist of this project is at this intersection,
the Broadway and Newell, and so let's see if,
okay, yeah, so we got this.
So this intersection, and so one thing that we're,
the main thing that we're doing is these curb extensions
on each corner.
As I mentioned previously, how do you turn it off?
Okay, we'll just do that every time.
technical difficulties, apologies.
And so as I mentioned previously,
the crossing distances on each leg
is about 100 feet, give or take.
So reducing that by bulbing out the extensions,
getting those curb extensions,
we were reducing that crossing distance
will also be enhancing visibility
where people biking and walking at the corners
will be more visible.
And then also reduce traffic calming.
we're tidying the radiuses for turning,
so you have to slow as you approach the right turns.
And then also to accommodate these bulb outs,
these curb extensions,
we are right sizing Newell and Broadway,
so when Newell was initially constructed,
it was constructed for higher vehicle traffic,
and right now it is currently underutilized
with the current traffic counts that we have right now.
So we are going to be using excess lanes
that aren't needed for all of the traffic
and using that to construct these curb extensions
as well as, as we'll mention in the next slide,
raised bike lane.
Another important aspect of this
is this diagonal crossing right here.
As I mentioned previously,
One of the safety issues is crossing two legs back to back.
So right now, what the plans are,
if you're on the trail on the southeast or the northwest,
you'll be able to cross diagonally all in one swoop,
limit the total crossing distance.
And to allow that, we are going to implement a pedestrian
scramble, which basically is an additional traffic
phase that says no cars can move at all.
It's only pedestrians and bikes.
If you're a car, you're not moving.
And then the last couple of things
is one design issue when doing these bull bouts construction
is, like I said, retiring the radius.
While that's perfect for cars, we
have to take into account larger vehicles like fire trucks,
delivery vehicles, and garbage trucks.
So to help them make those turns,
we have to do median modifications to cut the noses down
just to make that turning movement better for them.
And one significant one is this median right here
east of the intersection.
We need to break this whole thing out and move it up
so that people can make this right turn
because we are moving the slip lane.
So this turn is pretty tight.
And then another thing is the signal relocations
on the north east corner,
basically right where my little mouse is,
that signal would be in the path where the crosswalk is,
so we would need to relocate that.
That is the only signal relocation we have right now
is a quite an expensive item, construction item,
so we're trying to reduce the number of signals
we relocate, which we'll call up in the next slide.
And then the last thing on this slide is,
it's not shown here, but in a separate project,
right about right here.
We are gonna be putting in a bus shelter.
So we'll have a bus shelter there.
Again, not shown here, it's on a separate plan.
And that will be constructed prior to this project.
So now going on improvements of Newell Avenue,
this is taking off from where we last saw the previous site,
going all the way to Capitol Street.
So the main thing of note here is this raised bike lane
right in this green right here.
So this will tie into the previous slide where that goes in
and that will connect you to the Iron Horse Trail
on the southwest corner.
We are ramping them up just east of the Capitol intersection
and the reasoning we're doing it there
is because if we do it anymore to the west,
either right before the intersection,
we would have to relocate some signals.
And as I mentioned previously,
that is a very costly endeavor.
And because we're sharing this pot of money
with three other projects,
the funding is on the tighter side for this project.
Another thing of note here is the driveway modifications.
To accommodate this raised bike lane,
we have to modify the driveways.
So one particular driveway is the one going to
Whole Foods at Nursery Lane.
Because the bike lane is going to be at sidewalk level,
we need to raise the driveway going into the bike lane
sidewalk and then ramp them down into the street
where they will do whatever they need to do.
But to do that, we need to ramp them up,
which requires us to do driveway modifications here,
driveway modifications here,
and then because we are ramping them up,
we are installing storm drain infrastructure
to fix drainage issues that arise from that.
And then we're also, this median here to prevent left turns,
we're installing that, that was originally there,
but when Broadway Plaza got installed,
got taken out to allow for an additional left turn lane so we're reversing that I don't think so
yeah let's see okay so I know this is probably a little bit hard to read everything and kind of
see everything but these are their cross sections of Newell Avenue if we if we go back to the last
slide looking at looking at the quarter right here. So it will go forward again. So the the
top the top cross section is is east of Capitol Street. This is basically right after we ramp the
bicyclist up on to sidewalk level. So currently right now existing because this is just this is
these are the proposed cross sections. So going east there are two through lanes in a in a parking
lane so we would be the new configuration will only be one through lane and then the
parking lane that excess space being used by the new bike lane.
And then as we get to the middle one here this is right before nursery lane as you like
if you're going down Newell and you're taking a right into Whole Foods that's what this
this one is. And again, you'll see we have the bike lane, raised bike lane up here at
sidewalk level. And then we have the right turn, the through, and the left. So again,
this is using that lane. And we're actually keeping the same number of lanes here. So
previously existing this as two through lanes, it opens up to three, then opens up later
to four. This is where we're doing is having one lane open up to three, open up to four.
So we're still having the same number of lanes here. We are reducing a lane here going in
the opposite direction where this is normally two lanes. And then this is our median that
we talked about earlier as well. And then the last cross section here is right before
you turn right onto Broadway from Newell. So basically kind of you're almost at the
with the Iron Horse Trail, again, same thing.
You have your raised sidewalk-level bike lane.
And then again, the same number of lanes.
The only modification right here is the right turn lane.
Currently is a through and a right.
Now it's only gonna be a right.
And then again, as with previously,
we are having one less lane here to make up for the space.
I don't know why it keeps doing that.
Might need to be holding the mic there.
Okay, making sure, okay.
So here we have striping.
I'm not gonna go too much in the detail on here.
I just wanna talk about this for parking.
So because we are removing a southbound lane on Broadway,
and we're actually removing a through lane in each direction,
we have space to have parking
where otherwise it was a travel lane.
So in the instance of the right in front
of the Broadway garage on Broadway north
of the intersection, that was a through lane.
It's now because we're moving that through lane,
we have enough spaces to put a whole bunch
of metered parking spaces there
for people going to Broadway Plaza.
So estimated and we're looking exploring
maybe about 20 additional metered spaces there.
And then on the east side of this intersection on Newell,
where there is a receiving lane after the slip lane,
which is no longer, thank you, thank you Matt, right here.
So this is what I was talking about the 20 or so spaces
and then this continues down here.
And then the about five meters, non-metered spaces
right here where there was a receiving lane and no longer.
And then we have striping going on down west along Newell,
This I just again want to just this just bring this up because this is what it's connecting to phase two
So the raised the raised bike lane
Begins right around here
And that's where the major improvements are ending for phase one and for this project
we are doing all these striping and bike lane improvements through the intersection and beyond because since we are
reducing lanes in the directions.
We need to properly align bicyclists and vehicles on NUL
before they get to here or else there's no infrastructure
for that.
So that's what this right here is.
And again, that's what's tying into phase two.
And then also, back in January, we presented
with the Transportation Development Act project
to do some striping on Newall, that's what this is.
It's basically doing quick build materials
from the end where phase one is ending,
all the way to city limits to one,
align vehicles and pedestrians properly,
but also have quick build materials
that we will come in for phase two
and do the hardscape improvements, the permanent improvements.
And then this is the grant application
that was brought to you back in January.
Again, it's all quick build stuff,
so delineators will have striping there.
And again, this mainly is to align vehicles
and pedestrians where they need to go
and then get the road ready for when we come in on phase two,
whenever we receive funding for that.
And then one element that I do wanna talk about,
and this is something that we are looking,
we're really looking for feedback from commissioners on
is the decorative aspect of the crosswalk.
So the picture on the left is what it currently looks like.
On the north and the west leg,
there is like a stamped thermal plastic
that kind of looks like brick layout there.
And on the other two legs is just standard crosswalk.
Those two red stamp thermal designs
were required by Broadway Plaza when they were built
from the design review board.
And so we're exploring options as what to do
with the rest of the intersection.
And so, again, where we need to have,
we're looking at keeping this on the north and the east,
on the west side, and then continuing that red stamp thermo
brick layout on the other corners as well
to have it consistent.
And then we have the opportunity
for a decorative theme design for the diagonal crossing.
Similar to Locust in front of the Lesher,
we have that piano crosswalk.
We have the opportunity to explore different options
as far as what aesthetically we want.
So this right here is what was included in the application,
the grant application, and includes a horseshoe,
horse-themed crossing.
So that's something that we are looking for feedback on.
And then I'll pass it over to Brianna for phase two.
Yeah, so thank you, Austin.
Again, my name is Brianna Byrne,
and I will be covering where we are with phase two,
and this is where Austin talked about intersection.
This is really looking at Newell
from that corridor perspective.
And so this slide looks familiar.
Austin went over it specifically
that Iron Horse Corridor Transportation Plan.
So that one was intersection specific.
All these others are more corridor specific.
So we have that Olympic Boulevard Corridor Trail Study.
This was a county study.
and it tied bicycle facilities from Lafayette
through the county, through Walnut Creek,
all to connect to the Iron Horse Trail.
So Newell Avenue is part of that corridor study.
Then we have our city's bicycle plan adopted in August 2011.
Newell Avenue in that plan was identified as class three,
which is Sharrows.
These are currently in place,
and this is where cyclists have to share the road
with vehicles.
The more recently adopted curbside management plan,
this is from 2025,
and was brought to commission several times.
Recommendation nine from that plan
is to add low stress bicycle facilities around downtown.
So this is the idea of,
downtown Walnut Creek is such a destination,
let's get cyclists to there.
So providing those facilities around the downtown.
And then it is currently in draft form,
but there's the Contra Costa County transportation plan.
It's current, but one of the projects in that plan is to have protected bikeway circuit around
downtown. So that is reflective of our curbside management plan. And then I do want to highlight
at the bottom, so MTC, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, this is the body
that oversees the nine Bay Area counties. This section of Newell is included in MTC's priority
development area as well as their regional active transportation network.
And then more locally our Contra Costa Transportation Authority or CCTA, this section is also part
of their pedestrian priority area.
So I mentioned kind of that curb management plan and CCTA's countywide transportation
plan, the high quality low stress facilities.
That is currently not what is out there right now.
So what we have is this class three, that's the photo here.
There's the term level of traffic stress.
So stress level one, this is something that all ages and abilities think Iron Horse Trail,
you can take your kids on this facility, where level stress four is really only suitable
for maybe 1% of the population, those that feel incredibly comfortable riding with cyclists.
But we have now annual falls roughly at stress level three, which is suitable for only about
10% of the population.
So with this project and our current design standards provided by Caltrans and for traffic
engineers, we have to be providing context appropriate facilities.
So the project need along the corridor, we have class three, we need something more dedicated
for our cyclists and I do want to point out, so there is an existing wide path right here
between Broadway and Capwell. That is an existing class one path. So cyclists can ride on this
pathway and what we've figured out from our outreach is not many people know that so that's
a real indication that we need to be providing signage. So while we have class three there's
There's this beautiful class one for just such a short section.
In working and speaking with Kaiser and if you've ever been out here right around appointment
time on top of the hour, you've seen either Kaiser employees or Kaiser visitors doing
an illegal crossing between the shopping center on the north side and then the hospital.
It's a very well-known crossing location and we the city's previously pursued grant applications.
did crosswalk here and ultimately we just needed to, it needed more than just a single
crosswalk improvement and needed quarter-wide improvements to reduce the speeds and so
we're incorporating that crosswalk as part of this new project and then again as reflected
in our Olympic corridor study we do have a gap in bicycle facilities.
So with the build out we have that RRFB, the rectangular rapid flashing beacon.
The example here is on Mount Diablo at Broadway Plaza
getting, providing a safer crossing
where we already know there's a desired place
to cross for Kaiser.
And then adding in these buffered bike lanes.
Okay, so Austin kind of went over those improvements.
So on this top side, we have the near term.
So let's look at Newell Avenue west of Main Street.
So if we put ourselves here,
so this is the Kaiser Hospital,
and then this little Trader Joe's.
So in the interim, we have just a striped bike lane,
buffered by some posts,
and then the right turn lane is curbside.
With the full build out and signal modifications,
we're able to move the bike lane curbside,
put that right turn, essentially swap the two,
and then travel lane and turn lane.
So going from near term to long term,
that's what we're looking at there.
Moving closer to the Broadway intersection,
so in the near term, we just have this buffer,
turn lane, turn lane through lane,
and then kind of that share out,
and this is if we're headed from Whole Foods
the Park Mead neighborhood. That's the direction to travel here and it's right after the roadway
narrows over that bridge. So in the near term this is what it's going to look like in the build out.
What we're doing is we're having to modify this median, narrowing it in order to fit the vehicle
travel lanes and that bike lane. So as Austin mentioned as part of this timeline we did traffic
analysis and we did it using 2019 counts, 2022 counts, and 2023 counts just to make sure that
we are fully understanding the corridor post COVID-19 pandemic. So based on the analysis,
based on these proposed recommendations, there really is not a substantial additional congestion.
At most, and this is at most, the average vehicle delay increases by 17 to 23 seconds during the
peak hours at the Newell and South Broadway intersection and if we think
about the improvements that are happening there where we're adding a
dedicated pedestrian and bicycle only phase of course vehicles are going to get
extra delay and I will note all of the LOS is LOS to your better which meets
the city standards and then for queuing additional vehicle queuing at certain
locations so Newell Avenue at Main Street, Newell Avenue at Capwell and then Newell
Avenue at South Broadway with the movements called out. So the benefits of
both phase one and phase two that scramble both helps pedestrians and the
cyclists. For the pedestrians we're removing that right turn slip lane where
we saw those Los Loma students kind of packing in. For the cyclists we're able
to separate them from the vehicles and then we're also able to expand our city
wide and regional bicycle network so we talked about the operational analysis
we're also going to go into the outreach so again as Austin mentioned phase one
was a safe routes of school study and so that was really where our outreach
began back in 2022 but since then we've had pop-up events so once we had a you
know a good solid concept plan that we wanted to bring to the public we've been
at this intersection on bike tour every day.
So we were there in 2025 and 2026.
We were at the farmer's market back in November.
We did a dedicated pop-up at this intersection
right around high school dismissal time
to get those students' feedback,
and that was also in November.
We had a community meeting.
There was a public online survey.
We did community notices through the city socials
as well as we flired the nearby neighborhoods,
both park mead to the west and then the community to the east.
Just this past weekend was Bike Family Fest,
and so this photo here in the lower left is the feedback
that received from the families that stopped by,
and then we've spoken to you all as well.
Again, Austin mentioned several significant stakeholders
along the corridor,
but they have been included as part of this outreach process
and will continue to be,
especially as we move phase two eventually
from outreach to design.
So again, we've talked with Kaiser High School,
Park Mead Elementary School, Plaza, County Connection,
Whole Foods, and more.
In speaking with Kaiser Permanente,
there is a very, very popular driveway
that goes into that parking lot there on the right here.
And again, if you've been out here at the top of the hour,
you've seen both cars trying to turn right into there,
as well as trying to turn left.
And there is queuing there.
With phase two design, while we are taking away
that dedicated right turn lane, cars
can still stack within what we call the number two.
And then any passing vehicles can use the additional lane.
As Austin mentioned, Newell Avenue is overbuilt.
It used to provide access to Interstate 680.
Once they closed the ramp in the 90s,
the vehicle demand has never been quite that same.
So we're right sizing the roadway.
And so this, based on the volumes that we have out there,
meets that vehicle demand.
Moving into next steps.
So taking what we've heard from the outreach
and this concept plan,
We submitted to CCTA's call for projects.
We're currently waiting results.
There are several pots of money.
Here we have listed OBAC cycle four,
which was we got money for phase one from OBAC cycle three.
If we don't get this one, there are other pots of money.
CCTA is essentially asking for projects from all agencies.
And they're going to try to fit all projects
into the appropriate pot
and hopefully we can get some money for this one.
We did ask for 7.8 million.
So this phase two, we're looking for 7.8
if we want the bicycle facility at sidewalk grade
like Austin talked about for phase one.
We did a secondary cost estimate
to hopefully be more competitive
where if we needed to kind of shave things off
and reduce cost, we can put the bikes at vehicle level
with some type of vertical separation,
some type of concrete,
but instead of raising them up to the ped level,
they'd be at vehicle level
and that shaved off about 1.5 million.
So again, like getting,
we're about to enter into kind of the Q&A portion,
but just high level.
Phase one, in the eastbound direction,
there is going to be a continuous bike lane.
In the westbound direction, from Broadway,
there's that existing class one path
that's right by Broadway Plaza.
We're gonna get them through that capital intersection
and then the cyclists are gonna get dropped
into the existing, thank you Matt,
are gonna get dropped into the existing conditions here.
So this is the near term in the long,
oh and then once we get to California,
we're gonna do just striped buffered bike lanes here
and that will tie into the county.
in the long term, have that class,
that separated class four for the whole length,
both east and west, get the cyclist to California.
And then from there, again, that buffered bike lane.
And with that, open it up to questions
to kind of guide the conversation.
Austin, I have some talking points.
Feel free to provide this,
or if there's anything else that's on your mind,
let us know.
All right, thank you both for the nice presentation.
So time for Commissioner Q&A.
So we'll start with our student commissioners, Ellen,
who's brand new to the commission.
Welcome.
Thank you.
Yeah, so I just had a few questions.
So one, how would there be signage, I guess,
telling the bikers that go through the Whole Foods
driveway kind of when to stop and how that kind of be coordinated so the the
question is so if you're a cyclist and you're heading towards Whole Foods
towards Broadway like what type of signage is there yeah about the
intersection so I don't think we've gone that far so they they would have the
right of way technically so they don't have to stop okay yeah okay and then my
other question was how much space would the class for bike lanes take away from
from the road because you said you wanted to kind of separate them a bit
more? I can go over I'm not sure if we can kind of blow up the not sure if we
can how much we can blow this up but this is again this is our current
design plans for the cross-section let's see if Matt can kind of zoom in here
there we go just to kind of see some of the numbers we'll use this as an example
So if we look right here, this right here,
this point is where the current face of curb is.
Like if we were to walk out there right now
and see, hey, where does the sidewalk end?
It's right here.
And so we are building out from that curb face.
So all this sidewalk right here, it's at 8.7.
That is gonna stay the same.
We are gonna be reconstructing it to gray
just to kind of make the path a little bit easier.
but right here is where we're going to be beginning.
So we have about a six foot bike lane.
Again, this is elevated.
And then we have another about two foot,
basically another curb slash buffer slash additional,
additional protection from the vehicles
for the bicyclist from the vehicles.
And then we have our,
so that's basically about eight feet.
you know, then we have our gutter pan here,
but that's like included in the total width.
So about eight feet of total bike lane.
And then as far as long-term,
we won't really know until we,
like as far as the specific numbers
until we actually start doing the design work for that.
Okay, yeah.
And my final question was,
do these bike lanes go all the way
to like Los Lomas High School in that area?
Or like how far do they go?
So the, but I guess both near term and long term,
the primary access for cyclists to Las Lomas
is from the Iron Horse Trail, which is,
so at the Broadway Newell intersection,
so at this intersection,
the Iron Horse Trail continues down here,
this is the Whole Foods.
If you keep going south,
there's a back entrance to the high school.
So either the cyclist, they'll ride the Iron Horse Trail,
they'll do this movement, they go on the back gate,
or they just go through the parking lot.
There's a little bit of a ramp further south right there.
Commissioner Ash.
Yeah, thank you both.
Great work.
And I remember this coming here, I think years ago,
with those traffic counts.
I think I might've been the only one here, though.
And you guys alluded to them several times,
but didn't put any numbers in.
Do you have some numbers you could share?
Bicycle, ped, car, crash.
So I don't have them here.
We can get back to you.
I can say the 2019 compared to 2022 and 2023,
eventually it leveled out.
It's about the same.
The ped's on the bikes.
We do know based on the counts
as well as the collision history,
There are cyclists on the sidewalk
getting into conflicts with driveways.
Vehicles aren't expecting bikes on the sidewalk,
and so we not only know it from the counts,
but also from what we hear from the outreach,
what we've seen, is there is that desired need
for an actual dedicated facility.
Yeah, if you could send a follow-up email in the next week
and just indicate some of those numbers
and some of that feedback,
I think that'll be important to share.
And then you talked about the traffic count on Newell
for the cars is underutilized.
Could you elaborate a little bit more on that?
I think that was the direction coming down the hill
into Broadway, but I don't know.
So yeah, so I mean, for a little history.
So when Newell was built, that south Broadway extension,
it wasn't there.
It was this intersection was a T intersection.
This leg didn't exist.
And then as you get further towards the freeway,
there is an on-ramp.
So if we think about, so volumes over the years
have changed significantly here.
And when I say the roadway is overbuilt,
there's the level of service standards A through F,
for A, that's free flow, there's, you can go as fast,
there's like, you're the only one on the road,
you can just keep going.
F is where we get that congestion.
Right now, here, I can pull on some number.
What I can say is, from like,
LOSD is a standard for a reason.
So at the absolute peak, you can get vehicles through.
When it's not peak, it's a little bit less,
it's more like closer to B, A, B, C, D
is kind of that desired peak.
Anything at peak that's more free flow,
the roadway is too large,
we're maintaining a facility that could be much smaller,
and it goes into trying to balance,
are we maintaining a large road
that doesn't need to be a large road
because the vehicles aren't there?
It's about balancing the needs of the roadway.
Okay, thanks.
All right, Commissioner McMahan.
Yeah, I really like this project, especially the scramble.
I've had some close calls over at that intersection
with people turning right and you're riding your bike
across the road and it's very scary.
So I think the scramble is a huge benefit
to that intersection.
You guys said it's like a hundred feet to cross right now.
Do you know how much it's gonna be around with the bulb outs?
Give or take about, I'd say about 70 to 80 in,
And the 100, that's at the, again, that's already,
I think the east leg is shorter than that.
But I'd say on average, you're maybe looking from going
from maybe about a 20 to 30 foot reduction in each leg.
Because we're bulbing out, we're bulbing out,
we're moving a lane, which is on average about 11 feet.
We're not taking up the full lane,
but you can imagine we're moving a lane in each direction.
That's maybe about 10 feet or so.
So I'd say you're probably looking
at about 20 foot reduction in each direction.
As far as the specific numbers,
I'd have to, we'd have to look into that.
Yeah, but it will be a significant, right?
It's not gonna be a tiny little.
Yeah, it's not like we're reducing,
like, oh, you walk five foot less.
It's a pretty big jump.
Okay, cool, that's awesome.
And then I was a little curious, is there any plans,
this might be too early to plan for this,
but like trees and plants over there.
It is kind of a bear intersection at the moment.
So I was just curious, like, can we put some trees?
Can we put some nice plants in there?
So we are beginning discussions with Broadway Plaza
right here where we're doing this bull bow.
It's kind of hard to see, but right here,
we are looking to do landscaping here
to make some beautification efforts.
We are, we're going to be working with Broadway Plaza
about tying into their existing irrigation system.
On the opposite side, there is no existing irrigation
to basically maintain any sort of landscaping.
So currently, on the north, the northeast corner,
we're not going to be implementing any landscaping,
but on the northwest,
we are looking to implement landscaping there.
And then on the southern two corners here,
we're looking right now,
we're just going to be putting in mulch there
and then our park staff is going to be looking
into what they would like to implement there
as far as landscaping.
So on three of the four legs,
we are looking at landscaping
and various other green beautification efforts.
Okay, yeah, that's awesome.
Because yeah, one thing about weighting,
especially on a scramble,
I'm not sure what's the maximum weight time potentially,
but when you have shade, it's a much nicer weight.
Yeah, that's like if you've ever been out there especially like the Broadway corner, you know, there's not a lot of shade coverage
It can get pretty hot there. So yeah, we are looking at what we can do as far as landscaping
And just seeing what's possible
Cool
And then I was a little confused about the bike lanes
so is there gonna be a bike line on either side down Newell of like in the end in the end goal or
Yeah in the end all full east west city limits
We're gonna have everything yeah, yeah
And then like the current bike lane that goes by the garage
Yeah
We'd love like a sign over there because I do ride my bike over there and I thought I was breaking the law when I was
Doing it so that's cool that you guys kind of recognize that so I don't know
Can you guys like do some painting or just like a sign or something?
Yeah, and that's something that we're from the feedback we heard from this outreach phase two
We are incorporating in phase one. Yeah, the signing the striping those little things that we can improve
Yeah, so again, I kind of had this
Pulled up the striping plan polo. It's I'd say it's impossible to read that
But yeah, we are implementing a whole bunch of signage and in way finding and again
This is like I said, this is the 65% plan
So, you know, we still have a long ways to go for the hundred percent
So any any sort of little things like that are easy to kind of slot in
You know any like major huge design changes. We can't really incorporate that but you know stuff like adding an additional signage that we get
From feedback from the community from the commissioners are you know easy to kind of slot in we you know, we can do that
Awesome, that's great
And then um, sorry, I got a few questions on here, but it's because I love the project
Do you have to push the button to get the scramble to go or will it be automatic?
So because this is a scramble like a pedestrian on any corner is gonna trigger that phase
So we're actually doing passive detection
And then I was curious because when you come out of Whole Foods you can't turn left
So you're gonna be able to do a u-turn at the intersection or how are people if people do want to go down Newell?
Left out of Whole Foods like how are they going to be able to get to that point?
so they're
that Whole Foods
well, so I
guess two two points so
Looking at this plan
What's kind of shaded or kind of grayed out is existing?
So that left turn is more or less staying in the same spot
Yeah, and then that curve is more or less staying in the same spot
So if you turns are allowed there now they could fit with the project
But what I will say is most
What we do because left turns are not allowed out of here right now
They'll kind of work their way through these properties that are connected and then they'll make the left at
Capwell right here
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've been back there. Yeah. Yeah. I actually forgot that left turns are legal right there
Currently at the moment because people definitely do that
Okay, and yeah, I'm almost I'm almost wondering like could you improve like some signage over there as well?
Just so people know to go back there. Maybe maybe they do because they probably shop there all the time
But so technically because this is private property and not direct traffic on private property
And then last question for the crosswalk by Kaiser
You said it would like slow down cars like based on
these designs
So I was just curious like is it just because of like the roadway design
We're hoping cars will slow down or like is there any option for like a raised crosswalk?
I don't know if it's too fast of a street for that
Yeah, well so that I mean that's something like we could look at as part of the design
a raised crosswalk or a table crosswalk.
We don't want the speeds to be too high.
This is posted at 30.
But if we design for something much slower, say 25,
that can open up as a design possibility.
When I said we'd be incorporating traffic calming elements,
so right now, again, it's very wide.
So we could be reducing the travel lanes.
So just by making the cars feel less comfortable
going quickly, they're gonna be reducing their speed.
So that's one way that we can reduce car speed
through that pedestrian crosswalk.
And then we also have some curb extensions
and then that pedestrian refuge in the middle.
OK.
So the curb extensions will go out into the street a little bit.
So the crossing distance will be pretty short?
It would be short and correct.
OK, perfect.
Thank you.
I think that's all my questions.
That was a great presentation.
Thank you guys so much.
Thank you.
And then to Commissioner Ash's question about the counts.
Yeah, so at Broadway Newell, the pedestrian crossing volumes as high as 152, which isn't the PM,
and that's on that west crosswalk north-south. But it's anywhere, like I think the lowest
number I see here is 50. So this is in a single hour. So anywhere from 50 crossings to 127
in a single hour and then cyclists at that same intersection, we have 21 southbound rights,
29 northbound throughs and then a couple of movements that are in the single digits.
One follow-up question?
No, I'm just processing.
Okay. All right.
How about we move to Commissioner Guerrero?
Thank you for the presentation.
Concern about these removal of these right lanes.
Like, that's that new to Broadway, like, that's that's an important way for people to get through, like, coming off of, you know, down lower south on Broadway, and then making that right turn right there by the Dunkin Donuts and everything.
I mean, that's a major way through for anybody who lives up in those up in those neighborhoods.
So to clarify we're talking about so if you're on Newell heading eastbound that
eastbound coming up South Broadway making a right turn on the Newell yeah
are we talking about removing that right lane we're talking about removing the
slip lane so right now there's what we call that pork chop where the right
turns can kind of just at higher speeds they can make that turn correct yeah so
we are removing that correct southbound well I mean you're going you're on South
up south Broadway and you're going northbound and making the right turn on the Newell and then
obviously on the other side coming southbound on Broadway making a right on the Newell by the
parking garage we're moving that right lane. So okay so the northbound starting with your
comment about the northbound so that's this movement right here this was kind of that
that free movement there's going to be a left turn lane a through lane and then a through right turn
lane so vehicles can make this right turn we based on the counts we had
collected it again the level of service this is this is still adequate it's
within the city standards and if you based on City observation city staff
observation the consultant if you're here during the peak hours a lot of that
right turn volume is actually people trying to skip the light and then they'll
either do a u-turn here and they'll keep going up Broadway or they'll work their
through the neighborhood. So the volumes there actually were not that high to kind of raise
a concern for staff. Yeah. And then to your question about the southbound. So South Broadway
south of here, it already merges down to one travel lane. And so if anything, we're just
merging them further up. So instead of it's gonna be a left turn, and instead of two throughs,
It's going to be one through and then that additional lane is going to become a dedicated right turn lane
Okay
Yeah, I don't know. I'm concerned like there's I know I know for a fact
I mean, I understand your count and stuff I get it
But I know for a fact there's a lot of cars that come through there and I know that
You were also talking about putting metered parking along there
Coming down southbound of that new intersection by the parking garage. I mean do we need meter parking?
that there's that big parking garage there.
And if we don't need the meter parking,
can't that just a slip through right lane turn?
So what it's, so we bolded out, we curved it
and that is one to reduce the crossing distance,
but when we did this,
one of the very earlier traffic studies,
we were trying to balance the vehicles and the ped.
So crossing the length of a crossing will dictate
how long a cycle length is.
And so it behooves us to try to shorten this.
And so we did a balancing act of like,
do we need this or do we not need this?
And ultimately, this was one of the easier ones to reduce
because the volumes were not there.
And so when we can shorten this,
we were able to pull this out, this is a bus stop.
So this is an improved bus facility
where the bus can stop in lane.
And then to your point about the metered parking,
we are exploring it.
Right now it's heavily used by kind of
more commercial vehicles who don't,
they park there and then they work their way through.
It could be loading.
It's something that we would review
as part of kind of a curve management analysis.
Okay.
I'll just say that the way drivers are now,
It's becoming more lawless and less enforceable.
And so I just, I'm concerned that the frustration
of drivers over time with more traffic, but I'll move on.
I wanted to ask about what I was saying regarding,
there is no left turn out of Whole Foods.
So if we eliminate that slip through right lane turn
from Newell on the Broadway going south.
Is that what we're talking about
or am I not understanding that?
So if you're coming down Newell
and you wanna make a right turn on the Broadway,
headed towards, let's just say Danville.
Yeah.
Is that right lane gonna be no longer a slip
through right lane or is it not one now?
So that eastbound right is not currently a slip lane.
It is just its own dedicated right turn lane
and it would still be a dedicated right turn lane.
That one is staying a right turn.
I see we're supporting the bike lanes moving down Newell and all these phases.
If you keep going down Newell and you go under 680, everything kind of just stops, becomes
very rule-esque.
So are we also planning on moving nice bike lanes into that neighborhood?
So I'm assuming those are the people that are coming out
to use the bike lanes on the Newell.
So they are, but if you go further down Newell,
there's also schools.
There's Park Mead and Tice.
So there's also cyclists as part of that.
You have residents going to work.
It is a very well-traveled route.
So it's not just those residents.
To your point about what are we doing,
so that is the city limit.
And so from there, it becomes the county.
And that's where that Olympic Corridor Trail study came in
because there's so many agencies at play.
There's Lafayette, there's the county,
there's Walnut Creek.
They did that larger planning effort.
And so through that community,
I want to say it's that Sharrows,
and that's where the bikes share with the vehicles.
And think about, that's to your point,
it's a rural nature, it's lower volumes, lower speed.
And so that's where you can have that mixing.
Okay, all right, thank you.
All right, so you're getting so many questions
because you did such a good job
and you gave us so much information.
You're spurring on the conversation, so bravo.
Let's see.
At some point, you probably don't have it right now,
it would be interesting to see kind of a simple,
uncluttered overlay for the intersection
of what the Broadway Newell intersection
with the curb cutouts and stuff would look like.
Sorry about that.
what they would look like today versus tomorrow?
Yeah, so, what was that?
Yeah, so we do have that concept plan,
if you wanna go to the first slide.
Yeah, so we have what it will look like.
So this is what it will look like.
And, oh my goodness, in our workshop,
we had kind of that before and after.
You can click back and forth.
Like a top, do you have like a top-down drawing?
it's simple like, you know, red line is old, blue line is new.
We can look into that. You know, again, also, we could provide,
you know, looking at the plans. Again, these are basically just
screenshots of the plans. You know, we can do some work to
kind of declutter it and make it, you know, again, I just
wanted to show you know, everything here. Obviously,
it's pretty hard to see everything. That's kind of why I
was here to tell you everything.
Yeah. I don't want you guys to do more work. I'm just if you
have something somewhere that you can send out to us?
That shouldn't be that difficult.
We can overlay it with existing aerials.
We can kind of take this right here,
get rid of some of the callout, some of the riffraff stuff,
and kind of overlay it on an existing aerial
to kind of see these are our plans right now.
And then you can kind of see the differential
between the aerial images of existing infrastructure.
So we could look into that.
That wouldn't be too difficult.
We can talk with our consultant on that.
Sorry, can I ask a clarifying question?
Does that change in January with the final 35% of the plan?
Or we have that now?
When you say change, do you mean like this?
You're talking about doing the overlay today
versus the plans, but would that actually
change in four months with updated submittals?
It wouldn't change, like I said, at 65.
we're not looking at changing like significant.
So the other may be changes as far as like, you know,
semantics or smaller things that kind of button up
the design, but as far as like, you know,
the fact that we're putting in a, these bulb outs, right?
That's kind of stay consistent from now until, you know,
January or whenever we get the final plans.
So it will be like, there may be some changes,
but as far as like the general like layout and overlay
of the work that's done, that should be,
like we would be hurting if that changed somehow.
So we don't want that to change, so yeah.
All right, thank you.
One of my original questions, which you sort of answered,
I'll save for comments, but the question was,
does the bike traffic justify sort of the project?
So, but I'll talk about that during comments.
We have two public comment submissions that came in writing.
One we got just tonight.
Can you talk about how you feel about any potential impacts
for the people living in Park Mead in and out of that neighborhood?
Because that's one of the that's kind of the main thread of one
of the letters we received.
Yeah. And so I believe Commissioner Ash had mentioned that staff brought
Newell Avenue and like very, very infancy phase to Transportation Commission.
And we heard a lot of concern from the Park Mead neighborhood.
I remember one was that it's going to bring in more traffic
where, you know, at the end of the day, we're we're reducing travel lanes
from traffic engineering principles, usually reducing traffic lanes,
does not encourage that demand through a neighborhood.
I think it's more my interpretation of their question is,
you know, they live in Park Mead. Newell is their main in and out.
So let's say they commute and, you know, down 680 or up.
They got to go up the other way, but the other way,
they can get on there pretty easily, but just or they're going downtown.
Is their life going to be worse by making Newell more constricted?
So it's not traffic do park me.
It's hey, I live in Park Mead and I go downtown a lot, go to Whole Foods a lot.
Is this going to take me, you know, 10 more minutes each way?
So kind of what I'm hearing.
Yeah. And and I know you preface this with like, what do I think?
And as as a professional engineer, I'm speaking on terms of delay.
no i do not okay well thank you um you mentioned something later on the scramble um first off i
love scrambles i think that's a great idea and i think somebody said earlier i think you guys said
earlier you know when people are crossing cars are not moving like from a pedestrian standpoint i
would love that at every intersection to be honest that's why i love scrambles i know it's not
feasible. But the thing that caught my attention was the passive detection on
the scramble. So let's talk about the 152 peak crossings of pedestrians there.
Will there be some sort of cumulative cap, right? So that, you know, after the
intersection's been shut down for three minutes, five minutes, whatever the
number is, you're gonna let some car, you're gonna stop the pedestrians, I'll
let some cars go through.
Because I've seen intersections where
I feel like the crosswalk, especially around schools,
the buttons being pushed every 10 seconds,
and then traffic really backs up.
Yeah, so getting into kind of like that
goes into kind of how Matt and I would program the signal.
And so there's kind of that base walk time and then
that flashing dome walk time.
and that's based on the length of the crosswalk.
I think, Austin, what did you estimate that crossing at?
Like I said, like existing, we're looking at maybe 100 or so.
Yeah, so it would be that base walk time plus that length
of the crosswalk divide by 3.5.
And that would be the time that cars are waiting.
OK, we would never let the scenario I'm imagining,
we would never let everyone's trying to go to school today
and the car sit there for 15 minutes
as all the kids keep going and going and going.
If that ever happened, the volumes here would be crazy.
Yeah, that would, I can't, thousands of ped volumes
would maybe warrant that, thousands and thousands, but.
Yeah, I have no idea, it's just a theoretical question.
I'll just say the passive detection is an option,
you'll still have buttons,
but the passive detection is to place the initial call
And then it will serve the pedestrian phase
like it does normally.
It does say 30 seconds or something,
and then it will terminate.
So it won't be extending the pedestrian call.
That totally makes sense.
Thank you, Matt.
Or I should say, Mr. Secretary.
One of you mentioned earlier an illegal crossing from Kaiser.
Were you referring to pedestrians or vehicles?
This is pedestrians.
Yeah, so if we think about Newell Avenue,
specifically right by the hospital.
So here's Trader Joe's.
Here's that parking garage where the entrance is right here.
There is kind of that bus bay.
And then there's kind of this nice little walkway
that leads into the hospital.
This is pretty much exactly where
we show our proposed crosswalk.
this is a very, very popular pedestrian mid-block crossing.
There's a lot of food up here that the staff,
that Kaiser staff are ordering at
and they're going across.
And then also there's just parking.
People park in the slot
and then they run across the street.
The only thing that caught my attention was illegal
because I thought in California now,
jaywalking technically is no longer illegal.
So jaywalking is at an intersection,
or correct, you're right.
So yeah, it's not legal, it may not be smart.
Okay, I just didn't know if we had something different
here at Walnut Creek.
This might be the last question.
When the traffic studies were done to figure out
how much this would impact traffic,
do you know if the traffic studies included or anticipated?
You know, we have 95 units going into the 699
in Isho Valley, affordable project.
We've got the new eight story.
There was a prior project plan there.
I remember that from design review,
this one's different and bigger,
but so now you've got an eight story, 100 plus unit.
There's another one at Mount Diablo,
another new, taller one.
So I'm thinking about,
there's a lot of new approved higher density residential
that's gonna add even more cars than,
and I'm wondering if that was somehow anticipated
the traffic studies so to the yes ccta they have like a growth model and that incorporates
land use and what land use can be developed so yes but i will say prime primarily existing
volumes were used when you pair kind of that especially affordable housing but that dense
housing with transportation your you as a user especially if you don't have a parking
space in that facility your primary mode could be walking and biking and that's why some
of these downtown locations paired with bike facilities and improved transit maybe the
residents don't even have a car that those are the modes that they're electing those
are my questions are there any follow-up questions before we move on to public comment all right
there being none let's move to public comment on this item so if anybody wants
to come speak to the Commission on this item you get an entire two minutes to
speak to us and then hopefully you've filled out or will fill out a speaker
card. My name is Michael Vecchio resident of
Walnut Creek and member of a new group called walk bike Walnut Creek I love the
The project, the idea of it, there's some I think pretty minor questions or comments.
I'm a member of Kaiser, I walk out to Kaiser whenever I have an appointment that I can
walk to.
And so I'm a little, I'm hoping that the bicyclists that are going to be on sort of the sidewalk
class four facility that there's adequate signing legends on the sidewalk to separate
bicycles from the pedestrians. There shouldn't be any conflicts at the right turns at I think
Maine and Broadway if you're putting in the signal with signals and signing to indicate that cars
cannot turn right when the scramble phase is on. So that's what I'm assuming that signal operation
would be like.
And those are eastbound movements.
Westbound movements, wondering about when bicyclists choose not
to use the class 4 facilities like you're doing, Ryan,
they're going to be in the road.
And a lot of bicyclists want to be in the road.
Not a lot of them, but enough bicyclists
that want to do that because they want to ride fast.
They're doing it more for exercise.
They got the Lycra clothes on, type of thing.
I don't know if there's going to be any additional striping and or signing on
the streets to make sure that the bikes could feel okay and also that cars know
that those bicycles are allowed on the street especially if they're moving
out much as quick as the cars. I'm not sure about the bus stop on the north
side of Newell east of Maine if that bus stop is going to continue to be there
because that's going to stop right in the bike lane.
Wow, that was way too fast.
Yeah, it was an entire two minutes, but thank you so much.
There never is enough time, especially when there's an hour
and hour presentation to limit it,
public comments to two minutes really isn't great.
Yeah, I appreciate it, but thank you.
Any more speakers?
Yeah. Hi, my name is Tony Phillips.
I live in Parkview neighborhood
and I think you did a great job.
So thank you. The only comment I have is that at the end of Newable Avenue, as you go under
the bridge into the Park Mead neighborhood, that's the only place I've ever been nearly
hit off my bike, because cars come zooming down that really wide road, and the road suddenly
narrows, it gets really dark as you go under that bridge, and cars can't even see you as
it come in. So anything you can do to calm the traffic before that underpass would suit
me fine. And there's a sign that says 25 miles an hour on the far side of the bridge. Could
you move the 25 mile an hour up to the junction by the gas stations to make all of that 25
to slow cars down before they go under the bridge? Or even make the whole street whole
of Newell 25 now because if you're making it a narrow street it should be
probably 25 not 35 anyway that's my only request otherwise I think everything's
perfect thank you thank you very much any more speakers come on up my name is
Tony Almeida I live on Newell in Park Mead area I've been going down Newell to
the Iron Horse Trail for at least 20 years while I was working I'm retired
now still work at John Muir Hospital so I still go down there. I went to the last
meeting. I made some notes based on that meeting I sent in Brianna and Matt so
I'm just a concerned citizen trying to figure this out. I looked at the
attachments for today's meeting I'm almost done and I'll talk about myself. I
just want to make sure that the right turn lanes where the bike is on the right
and the car is also going to turn right that there's some sort of signals or
something that keeps the car from turning into the bicycle.
That's my main point.
Did I go over my time?
OK.
That was the main thing.
You did a good job with this, thank you very much,
and the presentation that was attached.
The right hook is basically my main thing.
There was one other thing.
Oh, there's one place where it goes from a 6-foot bike lane
with a 2-foot striped edge with raised delineators
to an 8-foot bike lane.
this is going west just before South Maine.
What will be the, if it sounds like we're losing the raised
striped edge and delineators, will it just be able to go to a bike lane then,
a solid line? Let me find my exact time. So this is on
going west and you're coming up on South Maine
and it goes from a six foot bike lane with two foot striped buffer
And then it goes to just an eight foot bike lane is all it says.
No, this is before Main Street.
Yeah, the Chase Bank.
Yeah, I think that's for the bus stop, which we are keeping.
Oh, yeah, existing bus stop.
Some sort of complex striping to address this.
So you stay to the left of the bus and the bus can still pull in there.
Yeah.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for the extra time.
Yeah.
Thank you.
there being none we will close public comment on this item and we'll move to
Commissioner comments do we want to go in reverse order are you ready
Commissioner Guerrero I'm sorry let me ask I always forget we need to ask
student commissioners Ellen first and then I'll come back to you yeah so I
really like the plan especially by the Newell Avenue I think it's gonna help
with a lot of pedestrian safety I'd say one main suggestion would just be if we
could find a way to work with Los Lomas High School and have more bike to school
days just to get the most out of these new bicycle lanes and I guess diagonal
crossing cannot North Gate High School will sometimes have bike to school days
or walk to school days where you bike or walk to school sure North Los Lomas has
this too and you get like donuts or something like that just to I guess get
the most out of these new lanes yeah. Thank you. Commissioner Guerrero. Just the
last thing I have is going back to South Broadway and Newell right there along
the sidewalk where the rideshare parking lot is across from Whole Foods so
that that sidewalk right there is pretty big I think it matches the other side
but there's not a lot of people going on that sidewalk down to down that
direction I don't think because it doesn't really go anywhere correct and
actually not a sidewalk so underneath that is a waterway so it's actually just
a bridge deck it doesn't connect anything it's kind of just a plaza okay
yeah so the only thing I was thinking is if it's any way possible to eliminate
some of that area if it's not being used too much by pedestrians maybe we keep
that right turn lane on Daniel that's it
Commissioner McMahon yeah I really like the project especially the scramble and
and the bike lanes and the bus stops.
I think those are all really great.
I don't think we've commented on the design.
I do like the design of the horse,
you know, whatever you call them,
horseshoes going across.
I think that looks great.
And yeah, it just kind of adds something
to that intersection.
You know, beauty to the intersection is always good
as well as being functional.
I have, you know, walked and rode my bike
down that street a lot.
And I do see Los Lomas kids there all the time.
I was there the other day.
There was probably 100 kids walking down that street.
So I think that's going to be a huge benefit to the kids coming
to and from school.
And I think more and more kids, the safer it feels,
the more and more kids that will use it
and parents that will use it to get to Los Lomas.
And that could take cars off the road
and potentially help traffic as well.
And also just encouraging people to get downtown more
because it's easier to get down there
when you have to park and yeah.
So I think, you know, let's just push forward
on this project and get it built as fast as possible.
If we could do it all in one phase,
that would be the way I would want it to do it.
But yeah, thank you so much for the presentation
and just all these designs.
Thank you, Commissioner Ash.
Yeah, thank you for all the work put into this.
If I recall, this was one of the more dangerous
intersections in Walnut Creek going back
to the data a couple of years ago,
which was why it was on a CCTA priority list.
It was flagged for in a couple of different areas for that,
which is why we're addressing this big project.
And so I appreciate that.
And I'm glad you were able to address the fact that
it's not gonna have a major impact on cars
versus the reduction that you'll probably get
from the alternative transportation means.
Which I know is a concern of a lot of the people
who wrote in letters also and that we heard from today.
And also on the artistic design,
if you could squeeze in this new phrase
that we're calling Walnut Creek, the nut.
I think that intersection,
Mayor Welk should have the nut written in it
part of an artistic design I second that but no great great design thank you and
oh my last part of it was the the counties connecting on the other side
right and the unincorporated areas they had a plan on that bicycle under the
bridge that somebody was talking about right yeah so and I and I believe the
County is looking to do like an update on that plan but as it stands it's along
Olympic Boulevard at Newell there's it becomes two options so one option is
through it continues on Newell through that neighborhood and it would connect
to the city portion and then the other route continues on Olympic goes down
California and then again connects to Newell so in the plan as it stands
There's like a little triangle wedge of two options
Great. Thank you. I guess that leaves me
The second correspondence we received from a member of the public
Had one major question
Which was you know, 20 22 23 approved funding requests. Why is it taking?
So long to actually do the project. I think you guys did a really good job
Slaining that which is why I had no questions on that the timeline kind of covered it all
You did a great job with all the steps and all the constituents. You have the government entities
You have to deal with the turn approved funding into actual
Shovel in the dirt working. So I think you did a great job answering that question for the public
My
Thinking on the design of the diagonal crosswalk
You know iron horse is really referring to the old
steam locomotives railroad could make it look like a train track or
Maybe a little train kind of a train a locomotive and some cars or something could be an interesting design
I was wondering if those were horseshoes, but so I must have gotten that right because Commissioner McMahon had that right
And then just my and I'm wondering if we just don't have the full picture of numbers of
Cyclists, you know
So I'm going to separate my comment on the project into two buckets
The the Newell Broadway intersection absolutely needs what you're doing there that that's a crazy intersection
I think what you want to do there makes a whole lot of sense given everything that that's there
So I'm very supportive of that and I'm not saying I'm not supportive of the rest. I'm just gonna
Pose a comment. It's for thinking only
That the numbers that you shared for bicyclists, which I think are maybe crossing the intersection
We're pretty low and I don't know if that translates to
the
Trips cyclists are taken up and down Newell and up and down Broadway
And I think that's why maybe Commissioner Ash asked for more numbers.
Because if the numbers are really, really low, actual trips by bicyclists, and don't
get me wrong, when I was younger, I rode my bike everywhere.
I got hit by cars a few times, so I understand how dangerous it is to be a bicyclist.
It might explain why I'm the way I am right now, one too many hits by cars.
But just my broad comment is big project, $8 million project beyond the intersection
is the money we're investing and the changes we're considering, do we actually have the
bicycle traffic to justify it?
Because I think the public, you know, would like to know that that question is being posed.
I'm just posing it in terms of a comment, and those are my comments.
Okay. I guess we can close this item. Unless staff has any further comments they want to make. Okay. Thank you.
I will. During the public comment section there is a question of the right turn hook so this is where right turning vehicle turns are from a cyclist.
That is a signal modification cost wise too much for phase one but it is something we're looking at for phase two.
And then there was also a public comment
talking about, as far as differentiating on the raised
bike lane that are sidewalk level,
differentiating between the pedestrians and the bicyclists.
So nobody's crashing into each other.
So part of that is the raised bike lane
is going to have a color differential
between the sidewalk.
So there's going to be that color differential.
And we are also going to be putting
like a stripe between them to signify this is ped walking,
this is bike biking.
Fantastic, thank you.
All right, we are going to move on to consideration
item B, Parkside Drive Cycle Track Improvements.
So we are ready for your presentation.
Just a point of order or clarification, Mr. Chair,
as they're getting ready is the two minutes
that we have for the public comment
is a city council policy that is set
and we abide by, just wanted to throw that out there.
Yeah, no completely, yeah, completely agree.
I agree, we don't determine that at the commission level.
Thank you for that.
Good evening.
Again, my name is Brianna Byrne
and I am an associate traffic engineer
here at the city of Walnut Creek.
This presentation is gonna be
on our Parkside Drive project.
This is an update to commission
in which I'm gonna go over the protected bikeway project.
So for tonight's discussion,
we're gonna go over the study area,
what adopted plans call for this corridor
on Parkside Drive, as well as kind of getting
into the updated design standards
for our bicycle facilities.
This project is funded by the Affordable Housing
and Sustainable Grant.
short. The shortened version is called H-SIC. And then we're going to go over the existing
conditions, the two project alternatives that we reviewed, the operational analysis, we did
a safety and comfort analysis for this corridor, and then we're going to end on the next steps.
So the project area, parkside is on the north side here, and then this entire shaded area is
is our north downtown specific plan.
What I have called out is BVE.
That's Buena Vista Elementary School,
and that's on the west of Parkside Drive.
And then I have called out WCI,
which is Walnut Creek Intermediate,
and that's just on the east side.
So this street also provides access to Interstate 680.
There is an on-ramp, or it's kind of like a shortened
or a direct route to an on-ramp.
This is Lawrence.
And then further up, it connects to the freeway.
Land uses in this area, we have auto dealers, auto services,
commercial, retail, hotel, fast food,
and then low-density residential on the west side,
and then medium residential density just to the north
and then just to the east over here.
So this segment is located within a quarter mile
of a 100% affordable housing project
and that's 699 YVR.
We're gonna be mentioning that in a couple of slides,
but this is how the city received funds for this project.
And then lastly, Parkside Drive
is a critical east-west connection
from the Iron Horse Trail to BART.
So we have our BART station, the Walnut Creek BART station
right here.
Riviera is kind of a back entrance.
And then Parkside is that east-west to get people on site.
So what do plans have called out?
So in our Walnut Creek North Downtown Pacific Plan,
and that is what's shown in this photo,
again, we're looking at right here,
we have class two bike lanes identified.
And when we get further into the discussion
about context appropriate, just want to note
that when that plan was created,
it's before the update standards.
So it calls out for class two,
same as our bicycle master plan.
In our city's capital budget, fiscal year 26-27,
we have it identified as a class four.
And again, I'll go over those details.
The, some other details about Parkside Drive.
During our safe routes to school assessment,
this is always ongoing,
but I had mentioned Buena Vista Elementary and WCI,
that elementary school is a feeder for WCI
and there are no bus routes.
And so a lot of kids are actually walking this corridor
to get to WCI.
And then it is also the desired route to BART.
We have heard that if a resident in this area
wants to go to BART, they will actually,
you know, backtrack to Pleasant Hill to get on BART
and then, you know, work their way towards the city.
So there really is not a facility for them to use.
They would rather backtrack to a station further back
than to go to the Downtown Walnut Creek Station.
Thank you, Matt.
So getting into that context, appropriate bike facilities,
there's four classes within Caltrans MUTCD, or the MUTCD.
Class 1 is on the top here.
And so this class 1 facility is shared by Peds and bicyclists.
And it's completely separated from vehicles.
So think about the Iron Horse Trail.
Class 2, the bikes are separated from the Peds.
We have the Peds over here, the cyclist.
They have their own striped lane.
So they are separated from a vehicle.
There can either be just a single stripe
or there can be a little bit of a buffer.
But class two is no vertical elements, so it's just striping.
Class three, PEDs have their own area, cars.
This is a parked car.
And then within the travel way, the cars and the bikes
are mingling.
So again, this is more of a residential context,
lower speeds, lower volumes.
And class four, this is that new classification
that has kind of provided we have additional guidelines now
within the industry.
So this class four facility separates the peds from the bikes
and the bikes from the vehicles with a distinction
of a vertical separator.
That vertical element, it could be landscaping.
It could be posts.
The facilities that we have around downtown right now
are striping with those delineators.
So what dictates the type of facility?
And it's based on the average daily volume.
and then the posted speed limit.
So along the bottom here, we have the posted speed limit.
And then we have kind of the average daily traffic.
So where we have low volumes, low speeds,
we could do whatever facility we want.
The world is our oyster.
But as we get further up into the speeds,
and for safety reasons, it's beneficial to separate
the cyclists from the cars, we get
from maybe a class 1 or a class 4 is recommended.
Maybe a class 2 is OK.
But then as we keep going up on both of these metrics,
it's either that class 1 completely separated
from cars, or where bikes and peds mingle,
and then they're separated from cars, or class 4,
where the peds are separated from the bikes who
are separated from the cars.
So where does Parkside line up?
Parkside has an annual average daily traffic of 14,000,
where the directionality is not split even.
So 9,000 of that is westbound.
So think again about that on-ramp.
A lot of cars are going on Broadway,
making that left of Parkside, getting right on Lawrence
to get on the freeway.
And then only 5,000 is in that eastbound direction.
We have a posted speed limit of 30 miles per hour.
So based on these standards, based on this graph,
we are off the charts.
So in this case, it's that class one or class four
that we need to fit onto Parkside Drive.
Could I ask just a clarifying question?
Yes.
It will help me.
Hopefully, it helps others.
Because the 14,000 is a big number.
But what would like an Ignacio Valley road be per day?
So it depends on where an Ignacio.
But Ignacio is essentially freeway.
we're talking 40 to 60,000 vehicles per day.
That's very helpful.
Yeah, thank you, that's a great question.
So we have these plans that state of facility is needed.
We know what type of facility based on updated standards.
So we have funding for it and it is through
the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Grant.
And again, that's HSIC for short.
And this is a program that aims to fund affordable housing
as well as transportation projects
with the goal of reducing greenhouse gases.
So the city has been working with,
the short is RCD, Resources for Community Development.
The city has been working with them since 2020
on the financing for 93 extremely low
and low income households.
This is 100% of the units as part of this project.
They applied for several years and the third time,
So in 2024, it was successful and the project has,
it's under construction as we speak.
So the RCD, they applied and as part of it,
the city committed to a list of improvements.
Class four, class two, class three,
all within one mile of this project site.
So tonight, we're going over that first bullet point,
which is that class four on Parkside Drive.
So looking at the existing conditions, this is a screenshot.
We're on Parkside Drive.
We're heading towards getting on the freeway.
So that crossing, the overcrossing,
that's the BART tracks.
There is a center running median for the entire length of this.
The available pavement width that we have, 24 feet.
So even if we tried to squeeze in just a typical bike lane,
it would not fit.
So something's got to give.
The funding source is shared.
All of these projects, HSIC is funding all of these.
And so because it is shared, we are very cognizant
that we need to be careful not to do costly modifications.
So costly is significant medians or significant signal work.
Not significant signal work can include maybe adding an extra phase.
We can pull some conduits.
It can be a little bit cheaper, but if we have to start moving a pole, that's where
that line item gets expensive.
And then the other constraint that we are very aware of is more just volumes.
And so because of that freeway access, there are significant volumes, and not only significant
volumes, but also heavy vehicles, so larger trucks.
So having that interaction, larger trucks with Peds and bikes, we would want an additional
safety in the design.
And then the last note here, just based on the existing counts we had collected, the
Peds and the cyclists, while they were on both sides of the street, they were mostly
on the south side.
So there is some natural inclination to be on that south side.
So looking at those constraints, we have a consultant and they reviewed two alternatives
where alternative one is a two-way cycle track, class four along the south side.
So alternative two is a one-way directional class four bikeway.
And so what this would look like, you have a class four.
so these are all vertically separated,
and then both bikes are going in both directions
on the south side.
And then alternative two is kind of the more traditional
sense, where you have a bike lane
and it goes in the same direction as a vehicle.
In the first alternative, we would only
be losing a travel lane on the south side.
And then in the alternative two, it
would be losing a vehicle travel lane in the,
I can just start scrolling.
Can you say that again?
The, you're losing one lane and then two?
So, because of the roadway constraints,
a travel lane has to go in order to fit a facility.
So if we're putting in a cycle track on the south side,
we're losing a travel lane in the south side.
So this direction, we'd be losing an eastbound travel lane.
If we're trying to squeeze in a bike lane with a buffer
on both sides, a travel lane is lost in both directions.
Yeah, sorry.
I don't know what I said.
So, and then trying to do the side by side here.
So there's a little bit of design differences here.
So with a cycle truck on the south side,
We would be losing some parking underneath the bridge,
but only on the south side.
On the north side, we'd be losing parking on both sides.
We had the consultant analyze Riviera and Parkside,
either right now, so right now Riviera is stop controlled,
and then vehicles are free to move east and west.
With the bike facility,
we would want some additional protection
because we do know the major movement
is doing this left turn onto Riviera.
So we would want that additional protection
for the cyclists or additional protection and separation
for the pedestrians and the cyclists from the vehicles.
And so that is in both.
For cost reasons, this is something that would not be part
of the funding that we have available.
It'd be something that the consultant would kind of do
the upfront work for us now.
And then we could pursue future funding
and try to get this incorporated at a future date,
whichever of these alternatives we went with.
Moving further down the corridor,
there's some median modifications,
getting to main streets and park side,
regardless of which alternative,
because again, each alternative
includes a bike facility on the south side.
As such, we would be, again, losing one of the travel lanes,
which means losing one of these southbound left turn lanes.
And that's true for both alternatives.
Alternative one modifies this westbound approach.
Slightly different than modifying this one.
And it just has to do with kind of the phasing
that you have to do with the signal
and carrying that through to which movements
need kind of an extra lane.
And that's why they're a little slightly different there.
And at Jones, and this is based on the counts
that we had collected, while the left turns,
so that's an eastbound left into Jones,
is a popular movement.
Left turns out of Jones are actually not very popular
at all.
And it kind of makes sense, like Jones connects further up.
There's other ways for residents to make the left turn.
And so from an opportunity perspective
to reduce that conflict point, both alternatives include removing kind of that left turn for
Jones Road, that southbound left.
So what did the operational analysis say for both of these?
So we have the existing, existing plus alternative one, where alternative one is that two-way
cycle track on the south side.
And then we have alternative two, which is the directional.
So the counts were collected December 2025 during we collected it during three peaks.
We knew this was a heavy corridor for school traffic and so we wanted to see is that midday
peak you know higher than the morning higher than the evening was there kind of an unanticipated
peak.
So we had three peaks collected and ultimately it was the morning and the evening that were
the peak for this corridor.
And so we analyzed the AM and the PM.
Alternative one and alternative two, both are expected to operate, all these intersections
are expected to operate at LOSD or better, which again is our city standard.
We can see some Fs in here, LOSF.
They are for the stop controlled approaches.
So Parkside and Riviera has a stop sign, that delay is representative of only that
stop sign, but the intersection overall operates at LSA.
Oh, and then the, so this is the delay, the other operational, the operational analysis
for queuing.
Queuing is expected to extend at Parkside and Riviera with a signal.
So if we think about the conditions now, especially that westbound left, again, this is a free
movement right now.
There really isn't any cueing.
So it makes sense where if we put a signal there with a left turn that now is a signal,
we're going to have more cueing than we did before.
So that cueing is expected to extend.
And then park side and main, again, we're going from two lefts to one.
So all the vehicles in that one, or in that one traveling that we're getting rid of are
getting added to the other.
the queue doubles and that's something that when we get into the signal timing
we can address and give that movement a little bit extra time. I had mentioned we
did safety and comfort analysis so what we did here is looked at the potential
to reduce exposure for our cyclists and pedestrians at these conflict points. So
conflict points are naturally going to happen at driveways and intersections of
Unless we grade separate it so it's they're always gonna happen but it's what can we do to reduce them or make them
low speed and so
Under the existing conditions when we looked at the whole corridor. We had 47 conflict points. This is for the Peds and the bikes
With the vehicles at driveways and intersections
with alternative one that to a cycle track on the south side we dropped to 30 and
Then alternative two while not quite as much of reduction. It's still a reduction over the existing conditions and
here is
Kind of what that looked like and so we have
different colored stars there's yellow and then there's purple and it shows vehicle turning movements and then where
Where those stars are shown it's where that vehicle crosses the path of say a pedestrian or a vehicle and so this is the example of
of Parkside and Main, where it shows all the stars,
where there's driveways.
With alternative one, we can see how, by moving,
there's no cyclists on this side.
If we move them to the south side,
we're reducing those conflict points.
Where for alternative two, if we keep the cyclists
on the north side, we can reduce it over the existing.
And this is where we can leverage signal timing
and phasing changes.
Again, that's not considered a significant signal modification,
so we can leverage that type of improvement.
So while still reducing conflicts,
it's not a significant, while still reducing conflicts
in alternative 2, it's not as significant as alternative 1.
The other example here I have is at Lawrence and Jones Road.
I had mentioned the heavy volumes onto Lawrence
to get onto the freeway.
So under the existing conditions,
trucks have to do that very wide turn.
so they're conflicting with the pedestrians and the cyclists.
In either alternative, the pedestrians
are still going to be there, but with alternative one,
the cycle track on the south side,
we're removing that conflict point.
So from this preliminary analysis,
alternative one is a recommended alternative
with the two-way cycle track on the south side.
It performs better than alternative one,
operationally and in our safety and comfort analysis.
So moving on to next steps.
So I mentioned we have a consultant on board.
They will incorporate the feedback they're received
into a 10% concept design.
That concept design will be used
to get a civil design consultant,
and they're the ones that are gonna start working on
kind of the design plans that we have going out for NUEL,
the more civil, heavy aspect.
We have several other HSIC projects currently getting worked on.
So by the time we get to this design phase,
we'll have a better understanding of how much money
we have left of that pot of money.
And again, staff are always looking for grants.
But during that design phase or when we're going to get into,
you know, is this striping with posts?
Is it raise concrete barriers?
So some of those details are really funding dependent,
and we'll know more during the design phase.
The other thing of note here,
I had mentioned that of the land uses,
there's a lot of dealerships out here.
So staff knows that they have loading needs.
So traffic engineering, economic development,
and our police department,
we're gonna work with the businesses
to kind of understand what they're using this corridor for,
incorporate the designs, and if not,
find locations for them on the adjacent streets.
And with that, open it up to comments and questions.
Fantastic.
Thank you.
So Student Commissioner Zellin, questions?
Yeah, so I just had a few questions.
So for the alternative two, where it's
like the two separate bike lanes,
are we closing two road lanes, or are we just doing one
like alternative one?
It would be closing one westbound and one eastbound.
And then the other one just closing one lane?
Yeah, correct.
we would just be closing one eastbound.
So what would be the benefit of, I guess,
doing two separate lanes over one?
And that's ultimately what the analysis
came to the conclusion of.
There can be, it would be Walnut Creek's first cycle track,
and so there can be kind of a learning curve.
But as kind of the analysis pointed out,
operationally and from that safety and comfort,
the cycle track along this corridor
is the most preferred option over that directional one-ways.
And then do we know how this would affect road traffic
now that we're closing an extra lane?
Yeah, so that goes into this LOS table, or LOSA.
Cars have 0 to 10 seconds of delay.
Under the existing conditions, these intersections
are operating at LOSC or better, and that makes sense.
These intersections are quite large, especially
Parkside and Main.
And then with the project, LOSD.
And again, that's kind of that city threshold that we use.
Okay, thank you.
All right, thank you.
Commissioner Ash.
Thanks, I think that was good.
My only question right now is you talked about the loss
of the metered parking spaces,
but I think this is a very low,
like used set of parking meters
where you were talking about over there, right?
Like there's a fairly consistent vacancy.
So yeah, the parking we're referring to
is underneath the freeway.
Yeah, so I don't even, are they metered, Matt?
I don't think they're metered.
So they're used by people who likely park here
and then walk to park.
So they are used.
Got it, thanks.
Commissioner McMahon.
Yeah, are there any upgrades to the intersections
as far as this project,
especially like Civic in Parkside and Main in Parkside?
Those are big intersections, very fast cars,
and waiting for the light there
is not the most comfortable thing ever.
Yeah, and so that,
when our consultant starts doing the concept designs,
we'll make sure the signal mods are highlighted.
But with the recommended alternative one,
this would have a dedicated bicycle phase.
And so the cars, you know, when the bikes go,
the cars see that no right turn.
And so that would separate them at this large intersection.
Looking, I don't have, looking at Parkside and Civic,
it would also be a signal modification
because at that location, we have cross,
It's a tee intersection, and we have crosswalks on each leg.
We have the opportunity to do a protected left
and do additional safety improvements there as well
through signal phasing.
Okay, and I'm just thinking about with the sidewalk too,
because it's kind of a skinny sidewalk on Civic.
So it's just like waiting, like when you're coming off
from like Iron Horse trails right there, right?
So yeah, when you come up there,
it's just like a short little sidewalk.
So if you're sitting there with a bike
or multiple people are sitting there with bikes.
It's like, there's not a lot of room.
So yeah, just curious if we could like
make the sidewalk wider or something as well.
Let's see, and then, so the freeway entrances
or on-ramps are only on,
like if you're coming up Parkside on the right side, right?
So there wouldn't be any conflicts
for people trying to get on the freeway
if we do alternative one.
Correct. No more than existing, which because existing we have that sidewalk.
Yeah, and I think that makes the most sense
The alternative one because of that and then some of the other reasons that we talked about to you
Especially just people trying to commute get on the freeway with bikers coming up. That's that makes it tough
And yeah, and I really like the slide about reducing the conflict points
With alternative one as well because I think every conflict point that's a potential for injury or you know, somebody getting hurt
And it doesn't feel as good when you're using it, right?
So it's like if we're reducing those conflict points
It feels better more people are going to use it because it feels safer not just because it is safer
So, but yeah, thank you for this. This was great
Commissioner Guerrero
Good presentation. Thank you. I
I agree, I think I like alternative one.
Do we have any numbers for bikes traveling east to west?
Should have had these numbers ready.
I will say so.
I mentioned our safe routes to school assessment
and what we had done at that time is for the morning drop off
and as everyone's going to school and then the afternoon
away from school, we had staff and volunteers kind of spread
out through the network.
And this was maybe three or four years ago.
And I put it at maybe a dozen cyclists.
And they're all on the sidewalk.
Again, they're that middle school age.
And they're all on the sidewalk.
Got it.
OK.
Yeah, I've traveled down here quite a bit on my bike.
And it's extremely dangerous.
And so I think this is a good idea to have a bike in there.
The only thing I'd be just a little bit concerned about
is, like you said, you're going to do the outreach to the businesses.
Because that area with the big old tires and the kinders
are still there, and then the auto supply,
definitely a lot of cars in and out of that little area
right there.
So that's it.
Thank you.
All right, thanks.
Did we have any even rough cost estimates
on the two alternatives?
It would depend.
And so again, this is where the materials,
because we started having that conversation
as we're allocating money to different pots.
Austin, do you happen to remember
what our kind of ballpark for Parkside is?
Yeah, we're looking, yeah, it's in the capital budget,
but I know it's less than a million for Parkside.
Okay, so small, pretty small.
Do you have any numbers that support
that Jones Southbound left turn is an infrequent movement.
I know it's not a fun movement
because I use Parkside quite a bit.
Yeah, so Jones Road, doing that.
So again, this is Jones Road, apartments right here.
Doing that Southbound left over the course of an entire hour
is 33 vehicles.
So one every other minute.
And then in the PM, it's only 18.
So for the one every minute, every other minute,
so the half a car every minute,
for those people making those lefts in the,
I think you said the AM.
Yes.
They would have to essentially backtrack,
go the other way on Jones and cut through Walden or.
Yeah, the next closest connection is called in.
OK.
The estimated cycle trips, I heard you say 12,
but that doesn't make sense to me.
So that was based on my recollection
of our morning audit.
Yeah.
Yeah, so those are specifically those kids that live over.
OK.
Yeah, doing that.
And so what, that'd be 15, 20 minutes?
I saw 12 cyclists.
So we don't have an estimate currently that says, you know,
throughout the day, there'll be 500 bike trips
down Parkside on the new facility
or the existing facility.
So as part of the operational, the count collection,
we do have it for those three kinds of times of day
that we have collected, we don't have the daily.
And again, this goes back to Commissioner McMahon's point
where it's like, there is a demonstrated need
and that even shows up in our plans,
adopted plans, our north downtown specific plan, there is that demonstrated need and if we build it
something safe more volume will come. Okay. I think those are my only questions, thanks.
Anybody have any follow-up questions? Sorry, I had one more. Will there be any signage to like
direct people to get to BART using this route? Like on Iron Horse and then just down those streets as
well. So yeah so yeah signing and striping is always a part of it and yeah
wayfinding when we get to that that's something that we would definitely bring
to you all and kind of work through. Signing on the Iron Horse Trail it's not
technically city property but that's something we can absolutely work with
East Bay Regional Parks on. Yeah sounds good because yeah people don't know I
just feel like they might not use it. I'll go and I think you said this but
What's the average, what's the speed limit on Parkside
and does this, I know we're taking out a lane,
but does this then reduce the speed limit?
Very possibly.
So it is posted right now at 30.
Every state is allowed to set how they set speed limits.
In California, it's pretty strict.
So, what we would do after the project is installed, volumes and speeds have normalized,
we would conduct what's called an engineering and traffic survey, see if that speed limit
needs to be updated.
It's nothing that we can pick, it is dictated by how vehicles actually drive.
Thanks.
Any other follow-ups?
All right, there being none, we will open up to public comment.
for this item? Again Michael Vecchio resident of Walla Creek and member of
Walkbike Walla Creek. I love the idea of improving this street just like
Newell parks out is a real challenging one to do and I'm glad you're attacking
it and I look forward to the further design and all those details that
sometimes can be really challenging. Also I love the idea you know reducing the
number of conflict points that's really important to make it safer for bikes
pads. A lot of kids go there. My kids went to school there. I wouldn't I would
never let them walk or ride their bikes on there. It's just it's that I wouldn't
feel comfortable at all and I think you know this is one of those streets to
certain extent like Newell that if you have a better quality infrastructure for
bikes and pads parents will feel more comfortable letting the kids walk there
because Buena Vista is just sort of at the Western end.
Those kids, a lot of my kids, you would walk partway
to school there, ride their bikes, but no way to WCI
and maybe this would be an opportunity for them
to get some exercise, health and reduce the motor vehicle trips.
Last thing is that, you know, a lot of this talk was about,
not a lot of the talk, but some of the talk was
about Parkside being a really important east-west connection
And I don't, I just don't believe it on my trips around Walla Creek and for the last 30 years.
I think a better east-west connection would be on the north side of an actual valley road.
Get some zoning changes made so that some of the development comes in and gets some special easements
and development concessions so that you can have a fantastic sort of cycle track connection
from Iron Horse Trail all the way over to Bart.
That's it.
Thanks.
Great.
Thank you so much.
Anybody else wish to speak from the public?
OK, then we'll close public comment.
We'll move to commissioner comments on this item.
So student commissioners, Ellen.
Yeah, I really like the plan.
I think it's going to be really beneficial in just connecting
the city, especially for students
who don't have their license or don't have cars, just letting
them get around places and I guess it's my suggestion would kind of be like
what I said before just to offer some benefits to these people doing using
these bike lanes like the bike to school or just really anything just to make up
for the lane like the lost lane that we have to just make up for the road traffic
that that will cause. Great thank you commissioner Ash. I wish Vice Chair Patch
you were here because these are both right up your alley and you don't even
have to preach alternative bike paths so I actually just really want to
compliment staff on being creative tackling a problem with the number of
accidents and injuries on this road being creative to find a path not only
for safe routes to school but with BART and everything else and I think this is
is exactly finding that balance
between alternative transportation
and keeping up with the cars on this one.
So just, yeah, great job Walnut Creek, you guys rock.
Commissioner McMahon.
Yeah, yeah, this has been needed I think for a long time
just to be able to get to BART without a car.
And I think this is one of the best routes you could have picked
so fully support it.
Definitely like alternative one, the best,
reduce the conflict points like we already talked about.
And I think it'll just keep encouraging people
to use alternate transportation
other than cars see it to Bart.
So yeah, let's push ahead and build as fast as possible.
Commissioner Guerrero.
I like the project.
So definitely like alternative number one, thank you.
Great, thank you.
Great job.
I like the project overall.
I'll just toss in sort of a similar comment
to the prior one, which is we have an aspirational goal
of more people using their feet or two-wheeled vehicles
powered by their feet.
I'd like to see that too, but then at the same time,
I wanna make sure when you guys are making these decisions,
you balance, you know, we have limited funds in the city.
You know, will we get close to the aspirational use
of the improvements that we want, so that there's
an ROI on the investment.
Not a monetary ROI, but that we actually
see lots of people on bicycles going up and down,
the improvements.
I just throw that out there.
Hopefully, we all think about that.
It's a no-brainer to me on choice one or choice two.
I think it's choice one, the two-way track.
I mean, for so many reasons.
One, we only lose one vehicle lane, rather than two,
being familiar with that road.
I love the idea of pulling the bikes away from Lawrence,
that freeway thing.
People can get a little crazy around there.
It also jams up when you drive through there and pass Lawrence,
and you're about to execute a right turn on a North Main.
That's another vehicle traffic choke point.
So why put the bicyclist there, right?
So I think that's a no brainer.
I would think it would probably cost less
than choice two as well.
It's a much more well rounded choice,
easy choice for me.
And I had one just related comment.
You mentioned like the BART backtrack
and I don't know how deep you went asking folks
why they would backtrack.
I know one of the most common,
like when I used to write BART,
whether you're in the city or you're here,
One of the most common reasons people backtrack on BART
is to get a seat.
So you have a much better chance in Pleasant Hill.
So if you're getting on an Embarcadero in the city,
it used to be you could go back to Powell or Civic
and get a seat.
And then when things got crazy, I
remember I had to go back to like 24th and Mission
to get a seat.
So that's a very common reason for that backtrack.
And that's all I have.
So I guess we can close this topic.
Thank you so much for the great presentations.
All right, moving on to commissioners announcements
and brief reports on any activities.
Let's go with Commissioner Guerrero, anything?
Nothing to add, thank you.
Commissioner McMahon.
I do have one quick thing.
There's been a construction project close to my house
that I've been able to kind of keep an eye on
and talk to Matt about a little bit.
So I was just wondering,
is there any other construction projects ongoing
that we've talked about, you know,
during one of these transportation meetings
that are ongoing right now that we could go visit.
Because I'd love to, I don't know,
it's kind of just cool to see him, you know,
come to fruition after talking about him so much.
And we don't have to do it now, we just,
maybe maybe not.
Oh, I'd like to call Austin Bato to the stand.
Yeah, so we're actually, you know,
we're kind of wrapping up the construction season right now.
I believe the one you're talking about is pretty much
all that's left is just striping improvements now.
So that's pretty much our last project we have for the,
Well, actually though, we are bidding
the Bancroft base repair project that was out to bid
and we're currently going into contract with the contractors.
So on Bancroft Road, we are doing some paving work there
and basically going out there, picking out spots
that have a lot of alligator cracking
or failed pavement going out there
and then repaving that, bringing it up
and then in a future stage,
we'll go in and do a nice overlay on top.
So that one should be coming up in the next month or so.
We're still going for the contract.
So that would be the next one.
That's not very exciting.
It's basically fixing potholes or cracks in the road
with new pavement.
The full pavement overlay,
that's the exciting part
where you're paving out the whole street.
That's the exciting one that's typically done at night.
So we can see you out there at 2 a.m. in the morning.
No, it sounds good. Or is there any recently completed ones that we could just check out?
So like I said that one over by you
Yeah, and then also every year as part of our pavement management
We do a slurry or a cape seal on various roads. So this year we did it over by
Valley Vista in that area in Diablo shadows
So you know check that out just to kind of see the new pavement that was laid out there
That was something we actually had a relatively light construction
Season this year. So but that's one you can check out
Yeah, Montego and Tampico is another area we sluried that might be a little more interesting because we had a lot more traffic
And a lot more, you know bike lane infrastructure
Stuff going on on that intersection. So that might be an interesting one to check out. Whereas Valley vista is more just
Overlay it re-stripe as existing with some additional stuff. We did do in those areas. We have
Constructed on Valley vista at that trail crossing as you're getting closer to the driving range
We did do some concrete
kind of little mini bull bouts to kind of basically
again shorten that crossing distance so that was a little small project and then we did some medians over on Diablo shadows area as
Well for some concrete by the park by the park. Yeah. Yeah, so like little little median
Refuge as you're crossing the park just to kind of make that crossing easier. We get a lot of kids crossing that to get to the park
so
Those are some stuff we've done
Like I said, I think the only one out right now is the striping for the one by you and then we have the Bancroft
One that's coming up the next month or so
Awesome. Yeah, it's just cool to see him, you know get built
So yeah, if you could keep us up to date a little bit on some of these like we'd love to visit at times
So yeah
Update on the Woodlands neighborhood improvements I'm asking
Thanks for the request
Note so based on that will it not be until
So we went to council to approve the funds. These were funds provided by Chick-fil-a. That was in June and so
Staff has not been able to prioritize
Making those making improvements and determining the best improvements based on the funding we have
Okay
So the plan that we've written for the neighborhood
Would not be covered by the amount of funding that we have. So we basically have to scale it back and
staff is limited on the best approach to scale back by so it's it's TBD it's
to be determined okay if we can keep that and then you and I had a a
conversation I don't know if you had the opportunity to do that and that's part
of your report and in the spirit of Commissioner McMahon's wanting to see
projects, you know, I just I was just gonna say that probably one of the most rewarding things spending four years on Design Review Commission was
ultimately seeing stuff built and
to be able to
you know see and touch
What we give input to as commissioners is I found that to be super rewarding
So I totally understand why you want to go see things. I'm with you
I want to see him too.
And I live around Diablo Shadows in there.
So the slurry coat makes the neighborhood
look new and fresh.
And all the nice new stripes and everything is beautiful.
So thank you.
And I think that's all I have.
So staff reports?
Yeah, I'll call Brown into the stand
to provide some of the updates.
Yeah, so school's back in session.
Just wanna remind anyone watching that the city,
we have safe routes to school maps on our website
for all Walnut Creek Unified School District schools,
as well as Mount Diablo schools,
elementary, middle, high school.
And these maps show existing facilities,
sidewalks, bike lanes.
So I suggest going, checking out,
kind of planning how you wanna walk or bike to school.
And along that line, back in January, Cara de Yong
from 511 Street Smarts Diablo,
she presented on the Walk and Roll Program.
Last night was the Sustainable Contra Costa Gala,
where the Walk and Roll Program was awarded.
It was the fan favorite that got the award of the night.
So she's been encouraging, and so this program,
for one day a week, it's walk and roll Wednesdays,
walk and roll Fridays, whatever day the school decides.
The kids are encouraged to walk and bike to school.
For every fourth trip, they earn a charm.
So they're the ones that are convincing the parents,
like hey, I wanna walk to school today.
My friends are walking, they're biking,
they're getting the charms.
And so it's really shifting the mode,
that mode change from the kids up.
And the program started at Cara School in Pleasant Hill
back in 2022 or 2023.
And those kids are now going to middle school
and that mode shift is furthering on
as they change schools.
And so it's been incredibly successful program.
It started in Pleasant Hill.
We have a couple in Walnut Creek, Indian Valley just joined.
We were at their staff in sustainability.
We're at their opening day to kind of,
High five the kids, welcome them in.
So if you know any parents who aren't,
if their kid's school is not in this program,
suggest it, it is very much run by parent volunteers.
They need those parent volunteers to make this successful.
So it is a program that the city
is very happy to partner with.
Let's see, so lastly, it is grant season.
So I'd mention that we applied for the Newell Avenue phase two.
This city also applied for improvements
at Ignacio Valley in California.
These are from CCTA.
It's a joint CCTA BART shared mobility hub project
that was presented a while ago.
We applied for that project as well as Better Bus Stops 2.
So this was just a couple weeks ago.
We will let you know if we hear anything else.
Also upcoming is HSIP Highway Safety Improvement Program
and Sustainable Communities Grant.
So staff is busy trying to get us money for projects.
I will just add that this coming Thursday,
one week from today is a general plan workshop
over at Civic Park from 5 p.m. to seven.
And this is the first of a few workshops
related to the general plan to collect outreach.
And it's really high level talking about vision and values.
So really trying to see where the community
lands on various items.
So we'd love to have some commissioners out there.
If not, tell your friends.
There's some raffle prizes I've heard.
Otherwise, Brianna covered it, thanks.
So Commissioner Ash asked me about U-turns
at Ignacio Valley in Oak Grove,
specifically the eastbound U-turns going westbound
to get into the shopping center.
I pulled a collision history report for the last 10 years.
I think there was one collision that was reported
many years ago with a U-turn.
So oftentimes with collision reports,
if it's property damage only, police arrive
and there is no report written.
And so it may not be recorded in that form.
So I think that's interesting, where
you can get into newer technology
that does like near miss.
And it uses video analytics to determine
if cars cross pass or nearly cross pass and have a collision.
So we are rolling out a project probably later next year
that will install this at various intersections.
and so we can get additional data insights
on these near-miss events they call them,
or actual collisions that would go
beyond the collision report.
So, I don't know if it's slated for that intersection,
although it should be,
but it's for various intersections along Ignacio and Treat.
That's great, thanks.
And yeah, just to fill everybody else in,
I often see, I get into the,
there's two left turn lanes,
I often get into the right turn lane
to eventually make a right.
But I would say 85% of the people in the left turn lane
are actually U-turning, and it's a sharp turn,
so they tend to swerve a little bit right to do it,
and that's great that there's no real accident history there,
and I'm almost surprised and grateful, right?
Just if I can ask a question related to that intersection,
I may not have anything to do with you guys,
but I noticed a couple of new little white boxes
on a couple of the poles.
I don't know if that has something to do
with our signals or something else.
They're like the size of a shoe box,
like a little electrical boxes.
They were never there before.
Heh heh heh heh heh heh.
Staff has no comment.
Okay, well thank you so much.
All right, well then at that point,
we are going once, going twice.
Adjourned.